Level Editor Tutorial

Official tutorials for the Vertigo 2 level editor. These are accessible in-game as well.

Video Tutorial

The following is a video version of this guide.

Creating a Level

Creating your first level is easy. Start in the Sandbox Main Menu, make sure you’re in the “My Levels” tab to edit local levels, and click the “Create New Level” button.

Select an environment for your level: these are stripped-down versions of campaign environments that you can build your level in. The environment cannot be changed later, so make sure you’ve checked them all out before working on a masterpiece. Give your level a name as well. This can be changed later, so don’t worry too much about it.

That’s all there is to it! You will be loaded right into editing your level, and when you return to the menu it will appear in the “my levels” list.

Level Editor Interface

To navigate in space, squeeze the grip buttons on your controllers and drag through the environment. Drag with one hand to move. Drag two hands in and out to scale your perspective. Drag two hands in a circle to rotate your view. You can think of this like pinching and zooming on a smartphone.

If you’re struggling to move, you’re probably zoomed in too far! Scale yourself up a bit to make things more manageable.

Pull up the quick menu by looking at the side of your left controller. You can rename your level, enter playmode, save your changes, upload your level for sharing, and return to the Sandbox Menu. You can also capture a thumbnail for your level, open the editor settings menu, open the level settings menu, and edit the AI navigation bounds. Finally, undo and redo buttons are here as well.

The Editor Settings menu contains options for snapping, drag multi selection, gizmos, and prop visibility. This menu can be repositioned by grabbing the handles on the side, and for convenience will remain open until you manually close it.

The Level Settings menu contains options for player movement, game difficulty adjustment, and visual options such as fog and color grading. Some environments also have special options that will appear here.

The Edit Nav Bounds button will edit a cube that defines where AI navigation data is generated. For efficiency, AI data should not fill the entirety of very large environments. Make sure this cube only encompasses the playable area of your level. If you ever see enemies stuck and not able to move, it’s likely they’re outside of this area and you need to expand it.

To begin working, you’ll need to open a palette. Hold the button that normally switches weapons to select a palette. Let’s begin by opening the block palette. You can scroll through the palette using the joystick. Using your other hand, drag a block into your level.

To manipulate an object in your level, first select it with the trigger. Then you can directly move it around, or grab the green handles to scale it. To duplicate an object, first pick it up, and then click the weapon reload button to leave a copy. To delete an object, grab it and drop it into the trash can below either controller.

To select and manipulate multiple objects at once, you can click and drag in empty space to start a multi selection. Several types of multi selection are available in the Editor Settings Menu.
Some objects have special Message Handles, which means they can communicate with other objects. For example, you can create a button, and a door, and then drag the Message Output of the button to the Message Input of the door. Now they are connected, and the button will open the door. To delete this connection, you can grab the center of the connection and drop it into a trash can.

Every level has a player spawn and a goal. The player spawn has options for what character to play as, starting weapons, starting weapon mods, and autonica allegiance. The goal has an option to select a sequel level, if you want to create multi-level campaigns.

Some environments have some extra permanent props you can modify. The ambience prop lets you select an ambient soundscape for your level. The Skybox prop, for outdoor environments, lets you modify the skybox. The sun light lets you change the position, color, and brightness of the sun.
That’s all the basic interactions you’ll need to know to master the level editor. Next we’ll cover all the tools in more detail.

Tool Palettes

The block palette creates blocks. Blocks are static, primitive shapes that can be used as the foundation of your level. They can be scaled in complex ways and put together to make anything you can imagine. You can also apply different materials to them, which we’ll learn about in a minute.
The prop palette is where you can find any prop from the Vertigo 2 campaign. There are a lot of props, so they’re organized into categories.

The special prop palette holds things a little more important than regular props. Player triggers, logic elements, weapon pickups, and music players can all be found here. This is where you will go when building puzzles or complex level logic. Almost all of these have Message Handles to communicate with other objects.

The enemy palette holds enemies. Nearly every foe from the game can be found here and dropped into your level. When an enemy is selected, you can modify its variant, behavior, and health. You’ll notice that enemies also have a Message Handle: if you attach anything to this, the enemy will not spawn until it receives a message. The Enemy Group and Ally Squad props can also be used to control groups of enemies.

Finally, the paint tool. The paint tool is used to apply different materials to Blocks. Scroll to select a material, and then point at a block and pull the trigger to apply the material. If you import custom textures, you can also apply these in the paint tool, but we’ll cover that later.

Advanced Props

There are a few advanced props that are less self explanatory, so here’s a quick rundown.
The teleport prop teleports the player to it when it receives a signal.

The seamless teleport prop, on the other hand, teleports the player while keeping the player’s relative offset from the start and end points. If used carefully, you can warp the player between similar environments without them noticing.

The Single Use Trigger relays a signal once, but will block any subsequent signals.
The Enemy Group lets you spawn multiple enemies with a single signal, and outputs a signal when they are all defeated. You can use an Enemy Group with a single enemy too.

Custom Assets

If you’re feeling limited by the simple shapes of the blocks, the level editor also supports importing custom assets. This is only recommended for more technical users!

To start out, let’s cover importing custom textures. To open a texture, click the “Import Asset” button in the lower right of the desktop window. These can be in PNG or JPG format. Once loaded, you will see the texture appear in the asset browser.

Once you have some textures, the next step is creating a material. Click the “Create Asset” button, and select Material. This will open the material editor with your blank material. You’ll see two previews on the right: the top is how your material will look on custom models, and the bottom is how it will look on Blocks. Select your texture as the main texture. You can also create PBR materials with a few more textures. A metallic/smoothness map can be imported - this should be in the standard Unity format, with Metallic in the red channel and Smoothness in the alpha channel - and a normal map - in openGL format. Once these are loaded, you can head back to your material and assign them as well. When applied to blocks, materials have an edge weathering color on the corners. This can be adjusted, or turned down by lowering the color’s alpha. You can also change the material’s physics material, which will affect the sounds it makes when you walk on it or shoot it.

Next, we can import a 3D model. Models need to be in OBJ format. You can export to this format from the free software Blender. If you have multiple materials, make sure to check the “Objects as Material Groups” checkbox. Materials will be set up in the game, so you don’t need to generate a MTL file. Once your model is imported, you can click on it to open the model editor. Here, you can assign materials. You can also toggle collision for the model.

You can import custom audio clips. This is very straightforward. They just need to be in mp3 or wav format.

You can create a custom song to use your audio clips with Vertigo’s music system. Click the “Create Asset” button, and select Song. To make your song dynamically respond to combat, you can select a calm and action clip. If you don’t want that, just select a calm clip and leave “action” blank.

You can create a custom Skybox as a background for outdoor levels. First, import your skybox texture. This needs to be in equirectangular format. Click the “Create Asset” button, select Skybox, and then select your texture.

Next, let’s go back into VR and look at how to use custom assets in your level. Once you have models imported, you’ll see a new tool palette appear for custom models.

Custom sound effects will appear alongside the rest of the sounds in the sound effect prop.

Custom songs will appear alongside the rest of the soundtrack in the music prop.

Custom skyboxes will appear alongside the rest of the skyboxes in the skybox prop

Materials can be found in the paint tool, just use the joystick to switch to the new custom material palette. You’ll see all the materials you created here. These can be applied to blocks. You can also paint custom models with any material, including the built in block materials.

With these tools, the ceiling for creative levels is raised significantly. I look forward to seeing what you create!

Level Design Tips

Level design is a delicate art, so here are a few tips to make sure your levels are enjoyable to play.

Ensure objectives are highly visible. This can be done through lighting, contrasting environments, particles, or other means. You may feel like you’re babying the player, but trust me that players will get lost or miss vital pickups if you don’t make them extremely visible. Even the most obtuse exploration games such as Dark Souls still mark items with a bright glowing spot visible from across the map.

Add checkpoints. When testing your level, you will become very familiar with its challenges, but new players will be experiencing it blind and it can feel unfair if a surprise death sends them back to the beginning of the map. Add checkpoints before difficult encounters to reduce frustration.

Playtest thoroughly. If you can get a friend to try out your level, that is best. If not, try to imagine you are playing it for the first time and play through it beginning to end, taking mental notes of anything you want to change. Recording gameplay and watching it back can also be useful. Playtesting will make your levels stand out when it comes to polish.

Consider VR comfort. Try to keep pickups at arm level so that players don’t need to bend over to reach the floor. A long climbing section might sound fun, but consider how fatiguing it could be, especially if you die and have to play it multiple times in a row.

Don’t make levels too long. The Level Editor is designed for short and sweet levels, and larger levels may cause performance issues or be too long to complete in one play session. Try splitting your ideas into multiple levels, and using the level sequel feature to link them together.

When in doubt, reference how the Vertigo 2 campaign is designed. You can study its structure, pacing, enemy and pickup placement, etc. to get a sense of best practices.

Uploading to the Community

Once you have a masterpiece of a level, you are ready to upload it to the community for others to enjoy. Make sure you have a screenshot of your level that shows it off well. Then press the upload button to begin the upload process.

You can revise your level name, and add a description and tags. If everything looks good, you’re ready to upload.

If uploading completes without errors, your level will appear on the server shortly.

Playing Community Levels

To play other peoples’ levels, enter the “Community Levels” tab in the main sandbox menu, and click the “Browse Community Levels” button. Use the search filters on the left to find a level that looks interesting, and click it for more information. You can download it here, and play it right away. Once you have levels downloaded, they’ll appear in the Community Levels list.

If you click the “My Levels” tab in the community levels browser, you can see all the levels you’ve uploaded. If you select one of your own levels, you can edit all its settings here easily. You can also add a custom thumbnail image.